Tweetie

36

Hazel sat silently in the school library, her eyes scanning the notes she found with a frown on her face. She missed her lessons, the school day had ended. Yet she was still in the school, shoeless. 

After the scene at Jason's house, she spent an hour simply trying to figure out the coded notes. Yet, she couldn't think, no matter how hard she tried.

She had been happy to find the evidence, but she was beyond stressed now. It felt ridiculous.

She wanted to go home, show the notes to Archie and get his help figuring them out, maybe even call Roderick over to spend extra time with him. But she couldn't. She would be in far more trouble if she did. So this was something she would keep to herself for as long as she could. With so much going on, the identity reveal, the notes, the hotel- she felt too complicated to be able to figure anything out. Her mind was a wreck.

And what made it worse was the news. It hadn't been a few hours, but already she was seeing article after article about the news of her only being eighteen. She couldn't even look at her phone without seeing it. 'Hazel White Only 18?' 'The biggest crimes solved by a kid'. When she read them, they were worse. They went on and on about things she already heard time and time again, still wondering who she was, slipping their own negative opinion in. If they weren't sexist, they were now condescending. 'How could somebody so young understand the severity of the crimes she solves?' 'Is she really smart enough to have solved these mysteries?'

"Tweetie?" A voice spoke through the silence of the often abandoned library. It was so abandoned, most times she visited, even the librarian wasn't there... She wondered if there even was a librarian.

She turned sharply, flinching a little in the anxiety she still wore, her tired eyes glancing around in search of the owner of the voice. But she already knew who it was from the name alone. Really, she was surprised.

"Ryan?" She hummed, watching the silver-haired boy approach her table, quickly shoving something into a shelf in the hopes of her not noticing. She did, she always did. It was obviously a book.

"What're you doing here? You skipped lessons to sit in here?" He asked, far too curious not to as she hurriedly shoved all of the evidence she worked through away. Instead, she switched it with a random book about Geography she kept to hide her work behind... of all subjects.

His voice was soft, eased after what felt like the longest day and she found herself warmed by his tone and the silkiness of his words. Her day was particularly rough, going from being ill to hiding under a likely dead boy's bed. She was thankful he was able to feel like the peace in the eye of the storm.

She shrugged while sinking down a little.

"Sorta," she said, resting her cheek in the palm of her hand.

She felt conflicted. She wanted to tell him and the others the truth, tell them she wasn't actually who she said she was, tell them that she didn't deserve the nickname Tweetie... But, she shrugged her shoulders, bringing herself back to the conversation as she continued to talk. It was too risky despite the new theory that was forming.

"I got back halfway through the last period, I decided to sit in here to save me from trouble."

"Aren't ya' gonna miss your bus?"

"I don't feel like going home," she shrugged again. There was obviously something wrong, she couldn't be bothered hiding it anymore. But she knew he wouldn't push. Obviously, she didn't have a choice but to go back home eventually.

The apartment was too full of Hazel White and she didn't want to be her anymore. She was tired of the investigation, of crime, of all of it.

"Why are you here?" She asked, trying to fight her own mind off of her, "Didn't you skip school?"